Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Scores of girls and young women kidnapped from a school in Nigeria are being forced to marry their Islamic extremist abductors, a civil society group reported Wednesday.

Parents say the girls are being sold into marriage to Boko Haram militants for 2,000 naira ($12), Halite Aliyu of the Borno-Yobe People’s Forum told The Associated Press.

She said the parents’ information is coming from villagers in the Sambisa Forest, on Nigeria’s border with Cameroon, where Boko Haram is known to have hideouts.

“The latest reports are that they have been taken across the borders, some to Cameroon and Chad,” Aliyu said. It was not possible to immediately verify the reports.

The Nigerian government needs to get international help to rescue the more than 200 missing girls kidnapped in the northeast by the Boko Haram terrorist network two weeks ago, said a federal senator for the area in northeastern Nigeria. The government must do “whatever it takes, even seeking external support to make sure these girls are released,” Sen. Ali Ndume said. “The longer it takes the dimmer the chances of finding them, the longer it takes the more traumatized the family and the abducted girls are.”...

Ah, yes. Far better to have hipster doofus Justin Trudeau at the helm so that Canada can revert to its voting-in-lockstep-with-the-UN-Zion-loathers Liberal default setting.Better watch it, head-up-buttski guys. The above photo can be seen as an egregious insult to the trans community, the victim group du jour. So now you Harper-hating tikkun olam types will have to deal with the cognitive dissonance and rank hypocrisy inherent in that.Update:Laura Rosen Cohen in high dudgeon is a thing of beauty.

While Israel has a lot to answer for, the pain endured by the Palestinians is often self-inflicted by a corrupt leadership, incapable of forming a broad-based national movement with realistic goals.

This is why Netanyahu’s decision to curtail more talks with the Palestinians is so problematic. It weakens those who seek peace and strengthens the people he rightfully scorns as Jew-hating terrorists.

It is? It does? I beg to differ, and did so via this letter to the editor:

I'm confused by Tarek Fatah's line of reasoning. First he says that Palestinian leadership is both "corrupt" and "incapable of forming a broad-based national movement with realistic goals." In the very next sentence, though, he says that for that reason it is incumbent on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to seek "more talks with the Palestinians."

Er, which Palestinians would those be exactly, Mr. Fatah?

The ones "who seek peace"--whoever they are--have no power, and in any case are afraid to come forward lest they be murdered for failing to toe the Abbas-Hamas line. The others are, well, Abbas and Hamas.

As Mr. Netanyahu well knows--but Mr. Fatah, apparently, does not--there's no one to talk to at the moment. It is therefore both pointless and counter-productive to pursue "more talks" at this time.

Last week, I wrote, together with Imam Abdullah Antepli, the Muslim chaplain of Duke University, an article on The Times of Israel that attracted considerable debate. We wrote supporting the decision of Brandeis University to rescind awarding an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born women’s rights activist. The Brandeis administration reached its decision after becoming aware of the fact that Ali had not only criticized Islamism but Islam itself – calling Islam an enemy against which war must be waged.

The central argument of the piece was that both Muslims and Jews need to stop demeaning the other community by promoting and even honoring each other’s renegades. Imam Abdullah and I defined a renegade as someone who damns his or her community, as opposed to a dissident who seeks to change aspects of that community.

I agree with my critics that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is courageous and does admirable work. But our argument was not about Ali’s character or her work. Neither was it about Ali’s freedom of speech. Brandeis has made clear that she is welcome to speak on campus. Everyone is entitled to be heard; no one is entitled to an honorary degree.

Our question to both our faith communities is this: How can we begin to heal our increasingly pathological relationship? One answer, we believe, is that Muslim and Jewish institutions must show restraint in celebrating those who characterize the other as evil.

The point of our article was not to draw a symmetry between those Muslims and Jews who repudiate their own communities. Rather, the symmetry we did draw was in the need for both of our communities to refrain from promoting, let alone honoring, those who demonize the other.

Hold it there, cowboy. Remove the demonization stuff from the Koran and the Hadith and you leave some pretty gaping holes in those texts, ones big enough to drive a caravan through.But I guess you and the imam, unlike Ms. Hirsi Ali, would prefer to paper over that truth for the sake of "reimagining" Jewish-Muslim relations. (Some call it "reimagining." I call it resisting reality for the sake of vapid interfaith feel-goodism.)

As CNN sees it, only those foolish enough to be "pro-Israel" would be disturbed by Kerry's word choice. And, as everyone in the know knows, those sorts of people are soooo goddamned thin-skinned.In fact, there's only one reason to deploy the "a" word re Israel and that is to brand it as such a morally depraved place, one which threatens mankind as a whole, that its continued existence cannot be countenanced.If you'll recall, that's the excuse Hitler gave for wanting to rid the world of the blight of Jewry.That Kerry fell into the trap of using a word so beloved of today's Amalekites shows how loathsome and stupid he is. That CNN has a greater problem with those whose "nerve" has been hit than with the apartheid calumny shows exactly where its bias lies (and I use that word in both senses--the placement one as well as the Pinocchio one).Update: Greetings From Apartheidia

A popular tale by Dr. Seuss was one of seven books that patrons have asked Toronto Public Library to remove from its collection over the past year.

A library patron asked the library's materials review committee to pull "Hop on Pop," a children's classic written in 1963, because of the book's violent themes.

The complainant said the book encouraged children to use violence against their fathers, according to the document that listed books patrons have asked to be pulled from Toronto Public Library shelves, which was posted online Monday.

A library patron asked the Toronto Public Library's materials review committee to pull 'Hop on Pop,' written by Dr. Seuss in 1963.

The patron recommended the book be removed, and requested the Toronto Public Library not only apologize to Greater Toronto Area fathers but pay damages resulting from the book's violent message.

But the committee decided that the book was designed to engage children, and that the story actually advises children against hopping on their fathers.

Seuss wrote: "HOP POP We like to hop. We like to hop on top of Pop. STOP You must not hop on Pop."

The book was retained in the children's collection...

Full disclosure: Not too long after 9/11, I complained to the TPL because I found a video with the risible title "Osama bin Laden: A Non-Threatening Profile" nestled amongst the Barney videos and Disney movies in my local library's kid-vid section. Following my complaint, the library ended up removing the thing from the kiddies department and putting it in the adults' section. That was some time before free speech and censorship issues were on my radar, though. I don't know that I'd do the same today.

It seems that Allah (along with President Barack Obama) helps those who help themselves:

A top Hamas leader and the Palestinian ambassador to Tunisia have thanked Rachid Ghannouchi, the leader of Tunisia’s Muslim Brotherhood-linked party, Ennadha, for his role in brokering last week’s reconciliation deal between Fatah and the terrorist group.

The Obama Administration lifted the ban in 2011 following the Arab Spring, even though he never renounced his support for terrorism. He met with top State Department officials in Washington last year and during his most recent visit in February.

The Middle East Monitor reports that Khalid Meshaal, head of Hamas’ political bureau, called Ghannouchi to discuss the status of intra-Palestinian relations and to thank him for his role in mediating the agreement. Hamas and Fatah signed the agreement ending seven years of sometimes violent feuding last Wednesday...

The Obama Admin: Worst. Judge. Of. Character. EVER!Update: Looks like the Hamas-Abbas rapprochement occurred in the nick of time.

A Canadian organization that provided humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza has been formally branded a terrorist entity days before the start of a court battle over the revocation of its charitable status.

In a letter to the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy, the RCMP said the federal government had added the group to a list of "terrorist entities" as of April 24.
"IRFAN is now classified as a 'terrorist group' under Canadian law," the letter from Supt. Stephane Bonin states.

"As a consequence, any property or asset belonging to IRFAN is now frozen."

The letter offers no reason for the listing decision but Canada Revenue Agency has said the organization supported Hamas, itself branded as a terrorist organization.

Charities Branch mentioned in a statement that “our analysis of the audit information has led the CRA to believe that IRFAN-Canada provides support to Hamas.” Speaking about the charity group formed in 2008, which mostly worked in the Muslim world, it was added that “our findings indicate that IRFAN-Canada provided over $14.6-million in resources to operating partners that were run by officials of Hamas, openly supported and provided funding to Hamas, or have been listed by various jurisdictions because of their support for Hamas or other terrorist entities.”

In addition to that, the CRA revealed that it found IRFAN-Canada videos at the group’s Mississauga office that “demonize Israel, characterize the Arab-Israeli conflict as a religious war, appeal for all Arab and Muslim nations to join in the struggle against Israel and glorify martyrdom.”

In other words, the usual wacky jihadist Zionhass.Update: Back before the jig was up, the feds used to fund Islamist outfits that funded IRFAN:

No one for IRFAN was available to comment, but a lawyer speaking for the group condemned the listing as an attack on humanitarian support for Palestinians.

IRFAN did not know the terrorist listing was in the works and had no opportunity to respond or offer its side of the story, Ottawa-based lawyer Yavar Hameed said in an interview.

There's no evidence the group did any direct funding of Hamas, he said.

"This listing happens days before we are to present arguments for the first time to the Federal Court of Appeal, so we're very concerned about the timing with which this listing happens which completely undermines any ability for this organization to work as a charity," Hameed said.

"On its face, we believe it is an unfair and unconstitutional decision that has been taken."

Hameed also said the listing was a "nail in the coffin" for Canadian humanitarian support for "orphans and destitute" Palestinians and wondered if the decision was politically motivated.

Yeah, whatever will those poor orphans and destitute do now?I'm surprised he didn't call the decision Islamophobic.

KUALA LUMPUR – As the Kelantan government prepares to apply hudud law in the north-east Malaysian state, medical specialists involvement in the implementation of the law, such as hand amputation for those convicted of theft, is dividing the country’s medical associations, amid threats of axing doctors who perform them.

“From the medical aspect, there is no provision under the Medical Act for doctors to carry out such duties,” Health Minister, Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam, was quoted by Bernama news agency on Sunday, April 27.

“The duties of a doctor are set under the Medical Act. They (doctors) should carry out their duties within the confines of the act,” he told a media conference after launching the 2014 World Health Day celebration at Jasmin Flat, Senawang.

The minister was commenting on news reports on Wednesday that Kelantan Deputy Mentri Besar Datuk Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah, who is also 1993 Syariah Criminal Code Technical Committee chairman, was planning to use the service of surgeons in amputating the hands of criminals convicted under the Shari`ah Criminal Code Enactment.

Similar reservations were made the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) which rejected the proposal to use surgeons to amputate the hands of thieves under hudud law.

The MMA has also threatened to axe doctors who perform amputations under hudud, according to Muslim medical practitioners’ group i-Medik.

The MMA president, Dr NKS Tharmaseelan, has also cited the World Heath Organization (WHO) instructions to doctors not to be a witness or certify the whipping and caning of criminals, adding that the amputation of criminals’ limbs would be even more “serious”.

Identifying Israel as even a potential apartheid state is not only an incendiary slur; it demonstrates the fundamental flaw at the heart of Kerry’s effort. There is no comparison between apartheid South Africa and Israel. But that term is not merely an inexact analogy. Since the Palestinians allege that the desire for a Jewish state is racist, claiming that the lack of peace means apartheid is a tacit acceptance of the Palestinian refusal to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn. Though this may not be Kerry’s direct intent, his resort to the ultimate slander in order to pressure Israel’s leaders to be more accommodating reinforces both Palestinians’ intransigence and their conviction that it is in their interest to keep saying no to Israeli peace offers. Rather than a mere expression of frustration, as Kerry’s apologists will insist, the use of the “A” word does more to doom the already dim chances of peace. As such, Kerry’s already dubious utility as a peace process facilitator is officially at an end.

Hasta la vista, Johnny Boy. Time for you and your "peace" schemes to sail off into the sunset.

What's going on? Well, in the western world today, there are far more lobby groups for censorship - under polite euphemisms such as "diversity", "human rights", "hate speech" - than there are for freedom of expression. If you attempt to roll back a law like Section 18c, you'll be opposed by the aboriginal lobby, the Muslim lobby, the Jewish lobby, the LGBT lobby, the higher-education lobby.... And you'll be supported by ...hardly anyone, save for me and Andrew Bolt and the usual suspects.

That's the hard political arithmetic of defending free speech in western chancelleries today: There aren't a lot of takers for it, and the opposition to it is very organized. A government minister with an eye to his press clippings has to believe in it an awful lot for it to be worth taking on.

What's at stake here? As per usual, Steyn knows the evil that lurks at the heart of it all:

As I say, in Britain, Australia and America, free peoples are losing the habits of free speech, and thereby will lose their freedom.

Indeed. That's because free speech is more than an element of a free society. It happens to be a--no, the--pre-requisite for one.

Monday, April 28, 2014

In a bid to lure me into subscribing to the Toronto Star, that bastion of left wing flatulence and reflexive Zionhass, the aforementioned rag mailed me a written pitch with this as its second paragraph--in bold blue lettering yet:

In a time when it can be hard to separate fact from fiction in the news you read on the internet or watch on television, you can be confident that what you read in the Star is well-researched and credible information.

The claim that the Star is credible is, in a word, incredible. (And shouldn't it be "At a time" and not "In a time"? Just sayin'.)

His comments come as South Africa celebrates Freedom Day - a commemoration of the country's first post-apartheid elections which happened 20 years ago today.

Tutu, a close friend of Mandela and the de factor leader of the liberation movement in South Africa while he was in prison, was left out of Mandela’s funeral programme by the ANC, and almost not invited at all.

Tutu has already made it clear he will not be voting for the ANC in South Africa’s elections next month - the first since Mandela’s death.

Going by the CNN International promos for South Africa I saw on TV while in Israel, though, you would think that the country practically verges on the utopian. In this instance, however, I'm prepared to believe Tutu over the Turner Co., even though Tutu, a notorious Zion-loather, is invariably too too wrong about Israel.Update: Another too too delusional public figure who, if possible, out-Tutus Tutu in his hurling of the "apartheid" canard: Obama factotum John F. Kerry.

Update: My experience of "apartheid" in Israel: Arab and Jewish guests sharing quarters and meals with no separation whatsoever at a pricy Dead Sea resort; Jews and Arabs mingling on the streets of Acco (Acre), Jerusalem and many other places; a night time adventure in Eilat during which three Jews (me, my husband and our son) shared a Jeep with three Muslim Israelis (a woman and her two much younger male cousins) and had a hair-raising ride into the Negev desert. The Arabs, by the way, sat in front of the Jews. (It was somewhat embarrassing when my husband asked one of the young men what position he held in the Israeli army. Also when, at one point I fell out of the Jeep and onto my cabooty--but that's a story for another day.If that's how "apartheid" pans out in Israel (and it is), it's obvious Israelis have yet to get the hang of the thing.

Deepening the problem is the fact that Europe's Salafists and other pro-jihadist Muslims, especially youth, attempt to "intimidate" those within the Muslim community who speak against joining the Syrian rebels, the Dutch National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security report said. The situation has become so incendiary that debates on Islam and democracy or the situation in Syria "are practically impossible" without security present.

The Dutch counterterrorism office estimates that there are around 3,000 Salafist youth in the Netherlands; but University of Amsterdam researcher Ineke Roux, takes a more ominous view, describing about 80,000 as "susceptible."

Most of these are second- and third-generation boys – young men born and raised in the Netherlands who therefore should, theoretically, hold Dutch – Western – values. That they do not, and that their numbers are increasing, has national security officials deeply worried.

Similar numbers can be found across the EU. In 2013, France counted about 13,000 Salafists in its Muslim population, Germany around 4,500. And in the UK, the numbers are growing by the day.

When in fact the real "made-up story" is that the Palestinians are "a people" and that "justice" demands that they be permitted to overrun Jewish Israel and expunge the planet's one and only sovereign Jewish nation. (FYI, I just spent the past two weeks there and will post about some of my experiences--including a brief interlude in Petra, Jordan--once the funk of jet lag has subsided to bearable levels.)﻿

If the world thinks Abbas’s nice words about the Holocaust are more important than his pact with Hamas or even his personal embrace of the terrorist murderers who shed Jewish blood, then perhaps it is time to start worrying about a trend that appears to elevate Holocaust commemoration over and above any concern for Jews currently alive.

He is also spot on with this:

The sad truth is that the popularity of Holocaust commemoration—even on the part of many who are hostile to contemporary Jewish life—as well as the proliferation of Holocaust museums and memorials seems to reflect a preference for dead Jews over live ones. The irony is that the movement to promote Holocaust remembrance was largely born out of an effort to teach both Jews and non-Jews the perils of silence about anti-Semitism. The boom in Holocaust memorials started in the 1960s as the movements to promote freedom for Soviet Jewry and to protect the embattled State of Israel gained greater traction in the West. It was widely understood that the clichéd refrain of Holocaust memorial—“never again”—was not merely an expression of ex post facto outrage about the conduct of the Nazis but a pledge to fight for the freedom and the lives of the descendants of the survivors.

Yet as the dustup about Abbas’s words illustrates, Holocaust commemoration has now taken on a life of its own that is utterly disconnected from any actual concern about defending Jewish lives, let alone history. It is a good thing that Palestinian Arabs understand and respect Jewish history rather than deny it, as their media routinely does with respect to Jerusalem and other issues. A degree of honesty from Abbas about the way the Palestinian Arab leadership embraced Hitler might also be in order.But courtesies about the events of the 1940s do not outweigh efforts to deny legitimacy to Jewish rights let alone justify the embrace of those who shed Jewish blood in our own time. If Holocaust commemoration has evolved to a point where these factors are unimportant, then perhaps it is time for those of us who have worked so hard to make it part of the fabric of Western culture to rethink the impact of what we have accomplished.

Trustee Sam Sotiropoulos' motion to ban nudity at Toronto Pride – despite nudity being perfectly legal at the annual parade – was resoundingly defeated by the Toronto District School Board by a vote of 16 to 6 Wednedsay, April 9.

In fact, I doubt it's "perfectly legal." It's just too politically incorrect to tell the nekkid ones to cover up that of which they're most, um, proud.

supports an innovative and exciting program of learning that emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach to knowledge and the solution of real-life problems.

That's a laugh and a half! Brandeis's "solution" to the real-life problem of supporting someone who bears the taint of political incorrectness: cave in like a half-baked soufflé.Update: An open letter to the Brandeis prez.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

FYI, the CJN has just revealed its makeover. The "new" paper certainly looks a lot better than the old one. As for it being "edgier," as its new editor promised it would be, I suggest you look at its opinion pages. There you will find a troika of familiar "progressives" (Farber, Marmur and Rosensweig) whose prose style, to be charitable, is less than scintillating, and who are as "edgy" as one of the knives in my mother's cutlery drawer. So the "edgier" promise turns out to be an epic fail. But, going strictly by opinion pages, the paper is definitely squishier.

to enable the Palestinian people to exercise their inalienable rights to self-determination without external interference, national independence and sovereignty; and to return to their homes and property from which they had been displaced.

The answer is simple. Kerry doesn’t want to blame the Palestinians for walking out because to do so would be a tacit admission that his critics were right when they suggested last year that he was embarking on a fool’s errand. The division between the Fatah-run West Bank and Hamas-ruled Gaza has created a dynamic which makes it almost impossible for Abbas to negotiate a deal that would recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders were drawn even if he wanted to.

Since Kerry hopes to entice the Palestinians back to the talks at some point, blaming Israel also gives him leverage to demand more concessions from the Jewish state to bribe Abbas to negotiate. Being honest about the Palestinian stance would not only undermine the basis for the talks but also make it harder to justify the administration’s continued insistence on pressuring the Israelis rather than seek to force Abbas to alter his intransigent positions.

Seen in that light, Kerry probably thinks no harm can come from blaming the Israelis who have always been the convenient whipping boys of the peace process no matter what the circumstances. But he’s wrong about that too. Just as the Clinton administration did inestimable damage to the credibility of the peace process and set the stage for another round of violence by whitewashing Yasir Arafat’s support for terrorism and incitement to hatred in the 1990s, so, too, do Kerry’s efforts to portray Abbas as the victim rather than the author of this fiasco undermine his efforts for peace.

When RCMP Sgt. Derek McDonald walked into the downtown Toronto mosque, he was friendly and warm, smiling and shaking hands enthusiastically.

It’s a style he’s deployed more than 50 times in similar visits across Canada.

But as open and warm as he appeared that night at the Toronto Islamic Centre mosque, he also had a very serious goal behind his actions: fostering community ties with Muslims that may one day help the national police force thwart a terror attack.

"If something comes up that is a police matter, they’re going to go to the imam and say 'Who's that RCMP guy that came to talk last year?’ It will come back, I know it," McDonald told CBC's Ioanna Roumeliotis.

How does he know it? Couldn't that merely be wishful thinking on his part?

McDonald’s efforts are part of the RCMP’s Muslim Outreach program,an initiative it quietly launched two years ago in a bid to encourage dialogue that could act as an early warning system for terror plots.

“This is not a public relations tool,” said Supt. Doug Best, who heads the RCMP’s national security operations in Ontario. “These types of investigations, we’ll probably get only one chance and if we miss it, the results can be catastrophic.”

Indeed. In fact had some imam not snitched to authorities about "the April 2013 plot to derail a Via passenger train in the Toronto-Niagara corridor," who knows what might have happened? However, there's no reason to believe that RCMP "outreach" had anything to do with the imam's actions. And, anyway, there is much to prevent others from doing the same:

At the mosque, McDonald insisted to the crowd that the RCMP are opening up a dialogue and not profiling the Muslim community. “We’re not here tonight to recruit informants or spy on people,” he said. “There are no strong-arm tactics.”

However, some Muslims in attendance worried this is a form of profiling.

“We’re definitely concerned about the security,” said Hosam Helal, a mosque leader. But “a lot of Muslims will also be concerned that sometimes security figures will exaggerate threats.”

Within the Muslim community, there’s also a fear of being ostracized. Even today, months after the plot was revealed, the imam who reported the Via rail threat remains anonymous.

"Outreach" is swell. I wouldn't want to have to rely on it, though, to keep us infidels safe.

In closing arguments in the Levant defamation trial yesterday, Brian Shiller, plaintiff Khurrum Awan's attorney, argued that the Canadian Islamic Congress (Awan was once its' youth rep) was a fine, upstanding organization. As proof he noted that then-Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty sent the outfit a letter attesting to that "fact." At which point the pro-Ezra faction in the courtroom, knowing that a high five from that eff-up McGhastly is hardly something to be proud of, burst out into laughter.Oopsy!Richard of Eye On a Crazy Planet points out that it doesn't take much to acquire such a letter; really, all that's needed is a pulse and a request:

As someone who has worked in Communications Branches for the Ontario civil service, let me tell you how that works. Organizations submit requests for letters from the Premier and some assistant will prepare the congratulatory letters, then put them in a pile for the Premier to sign. He almost never even looks at the letters, just signing one after another. These things are done as outreach (or vote-whoring, depending on how you look at it). But they are hardly the ringing endorsement that Mr. Shiller suggested, and I'd go so far as to suggest that if someone in McGuinty's office had bothered to do some due diligence on the CIC, that letter would probably never have gone out.

Poor Mr. Shiller. Had he really wanted to show that the CIC was well-respected, he should have told the court that it is responsible for Canada having an annual official Islamic History Month. And it wasn't Dalton McGuinty who signed off on that one--no siree! It was the feds--the Stephen Harper Conservative feds.Had Shiller brought forth that fact in court, the likely reaction would have been gasps, not laughs.

Monday, April 7, 2014

'Livia, Olivia, say, have you seen 'Livia,'Livia the ambitious lady?She has plans so vague and hazy,Tho' no doubt she'll spend like crazy.'Livia, Olivia, for sure she will giviaA ton of stuff that you don't need.She will say it's for kiddies, so how can you refuse?But your logic is saying when she wins, you lose.So fingers crossed she ain't the one that we choose.We should shy away from 'Livia!

We’ve all heard of Hollywood and Bollywood. Some of you may have even heard of Lollywood (the Pakistani version) and Nollywood (the Nigerian version). But what about Halalywood? No? Well, as of 2014, you probably will. American actor and comedian Omar Regan, who has appeared in films such as Rush Hour 2, has set out to create a halal-certified film industry for Muslims.

“There are 1 billion Muslims around the world and there is nobody catering for us and our stories. So I left Hollywood and I’m going Halalywood!” Regan says in a video encouraging people to donate to his Kickstarter project.

“Here is our mission: we are going to provide halal entertainment, that’s entertainment we [Muslims] can relate to. Secondly, we want to re-educate the masses about Muslims and Islam. Thirdly, it will provide a platform for young Muslim writers, actors and directors, where they can go and get their stories made and they won’t be turned away,” he says.

Regan is set to release his first movie American Sharia, a comedy/action film about rogue government officials using Islamophobia to maintain power, later this year...

has become such an issue for doctors in Canada, that new guidelines were drafted at the end of last year to help physicians deal with patients -- some as young as twelve -- who are interested in getting their labias trimmed or cut off entirely.

Who are these patients? Whoever they are, they're entirely too obsessed with their vajayjays (a sign of our society's decadence, I'd say).

Renn Forsberg's family says that, in her heart and in her brain, their six-year-old is a girl.

They want her birth certificate to reflect that.

Better yet, they argue, the sex box now marked with an 'M' should be removed from the document altogether.

The Saskatchewan family has filed one of several human rights complaints across the country that are prompting some provinces to rethink their rules about changing sex on birth certificates.

Renn's mother, Fran Forsberg, says governments need to keep up with changing times. Birth certificates once listed a baby's race and a father's occupation, she says, and a sex designation is just as archaic.

Forsberg says Renn needed her birth certificate last year to register for kindergarten in Saskatoon and was embarrassed to be listed as a boy. That sparked her family to fight for a new birth certificate, a basic piece of paper needed to apply for most identification documents...

Okay, how's this for a solution? Instead of the "archaic" male and female boxes, why not offer the choice of "male," "female," "transgendered (now female)," "transgendered (now male)" and "none of the above"?

The head of the British branch of the Muslim Brotherhood warned on Sunday that Prime Minister David Cameron’s announcement last week that his government would investigate the group’s activities in the United Kingdom could invite terrorist attacks against civilians.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, Ibrahim Mounir, the Brotherhood’s most senior official in the UK, said that the government’s designation of his organization as a terrorist entity could be interpreted by its followers that violence was an option.

“If this [ban] happened, this would make a lot of people in Muslim communities think that [peaceful] Muslim Brotherhood values . . . didn’t work and now they are designated a terrorist group, which would make the doors open for all options,” Mounir told the newspaper.

When he was asked if he meant the group was open to violence, he replied: “Any possibility.”

“This would make more problems...

Peaceful Muslim Brotherhood values, eh? Funny, but that "jihad is the way, sharia rocks, dying for Allah is the best way to go" stuff (or words to that effect) never sounded particularly "peaceful" to me.

Just over a week ago a Malaysian
husband and wife were jailed by a Swedish court for smacking and caning their
children. The case, which began with their arrest in December, has led some
Malaysians to wonder whether they rely too much on corporal punishment.

"This is what one of the children called a rotan," said prosecutor Anna
Arnell, producing a cane in the Stockholm courtroom. "In Malaysia it is a whip
used to discipline children in school and at home."

Her words prompted "looks of confusion and shock" in court, according to
Malaysian newspaper The Star.

The youngest son of the couple in the dock, seven-year-old Arif, had earlier
been seen in a video recording saying that his father had pinched him on the
arms, while his mother had hit him with a coat hanger and a "stick with a knot
at the end".

This was the rotan, or rattan.

Malaysians would not find these statements shocking.

Well, in that case, we should cut 'em some slack, right?:

In fact, Malaysian tourism and culture minister Mohamed
Nazri Abdul Aziz used almost the same words as the prosecutor when, in January,
he urged the Swedish authorities to show leniency.

"In Malaysia it's common to scold or cane our children a little now and
then," he said.

Each country has its own culture and its own ways of bringing up children, he
added.

Quite so, but I don't think a little scolding or caning is the problem:

These contrasting attitudes also came into sharp focus when the second of the
couple's four children, Ammar, estimated that he was beaten more than 1,000
times per year, for such things as playing loud music instead of doing homework,
fighting with his sister, or misbehaving when he was meant to be reading the
Koran with his mother.

That isn't child-rearing. That's sadistic torture.Update:Caning in Malaysia--it's all the rage!

Saturday, April 5, 2014

The man who is arguably the most incompetent, duplicitous premier in Ontario's history has a very specific--and extremely risible--research interest at Harvard. He's looking into--get this--"The re-emergence of manufacturing in Ontario and the Great Lake states
post-recession."Since manufacturing in those places has yet to re-emerge (in Ontario, that's in large part thanks to old Dalton's boneheaded green energy policies and "smart meters," which kited fuel costs, and hence manufacturing costs, into the stratosphere) he must have an awful lot of time on his hands.

BEIRUT, LEBANON—At the entrance to the Beirut office of the March organization, there is a well-stocked bookshelf. Its contents include notables such as Of Mice and Men, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Da Vinci Code, Sophie’s Choice and the slightly less classy Little Book of Big Penis.

Crack the covers and you’ll realize this isn’t any ordinary book collection. The pages are all blank. The Lebanese government has banned them. The reasons range from homosexual references and politics to religion and vague connection to things Jewish.

March, a Lebanese NGO and the owner of this collection, has been documenting these obscure and arbitrary censorship practices in Lebanon via its Virtual Museum of Censorship since the group was founded in 2011.

“The laws of censorship are so vague that it allows the people in charge to censor anything they want,” says Lea Baroudi, a founding member of March. “And what worries me is that I think it is getting worse.”...

What's behind the capricious censorship? I'm sure you can take a wild guess:

One reason for censorship is the 1955 Lebanese Anti-Israeli Boycott law, which outlaws any material related to the State of Israel. Although the law targets Israel, rather than Jews, it has been interpreted broadly by some censors. This has resulted in decisions to ban some movies in which Jewish actors appear while allowing others, and the random black markering of any name that has a Jewish ring to it.

The classic Of Mice and Men was recently banned when an officer thought the name John Steinbeck sounded Jewish, according to the Daily Star newspaper. After discovering he wasn’t Jewish, the ban was lifted.

On that basis, Mark Steyn, a non-Jew with a Jewy-sounding name who's been labeled a "raging Islamophobe, would be banned for sure.

The Power of a Coherent Vision

The Republicans have long understood the power of offering a coherent vision to the public. That’s why they adopted Newt Gingrich’s ten-point “Contract with America” in 1994 as their central unifying message—a decision that enabled them to take back control of the Congress. Lacking a similar unifying vision, the Democrats are once again on the path toward self-marginalization, while progressives stew in their own sense of powerlessness.

Putting forward a larger worldview is both ethically appropriate and likely to be politically effective. The core values of love, kindness, generosity, and caring (caring for each other and the earth) must become the central focus of all who hope to heal and transform our world. A progressive political movement that does not prioritize love will never succeed in effectively challenging unbridled corporate capitalism and the toxic ethos dominating the global economy.

Most people have two voices in their heads. One voice says this is a world in which other people are out to advance their own interests at all costs, and they will exploit us unless we succeed in dominating them first. The other voice says our own security and success in the world is more likely to be achieved when others experience us as loving, caring, and generous toward them. Those who hold the domination worldview tend to vote conservative, whereas those who hold the generosity worldview tend to vote liberal or progressive.

Actually, Mike, you have it all wrong. Those who hold the conservative worldview tend to want people to be independent and, as much as possible, resist the snares and lures of government entitlement programs, which breed dependency. Those who hold the "love" worldview (or "the vision of the anointed," as Thomas Sowell calls it) use it to empower themselves, bureaucracies, and big government at the expense of the individual, all the while telling themselves that they know better than "the little guy" how he should lead his life. We know where your recipe for Utopia leads, i.e. to perdition--and it isn't a place that anyone who values freedom/liberty would want to live.

OTTAWA — Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau's questioning of the federal government's lack of "communication" with Iran's Islamist government has become a lightning rod for critics.

Critics have zapped Trudeau for questioning Canada's 2012 decision to shut down the country's embassy in Tehran and expel Iranian diplomats in Ottawa.

"I know certain elements of it were a security decision ... but I'm of the school of international relations that says its important to talk to each other and its especially important to talk to regimes that you disagree with and that disagree with you, and make sure that there is means of communication," Trudeau said March 21 in an interview with Salam Toronto — a Farsi-language newspaper for Canadians of Iranian heritage.

A pro-democracy activist who fled Iran says Trudeau's comments don't sit well with many in her community.

"If people like Justin Trudeau are going to promote dialogue, that's going to give the Islamic regime legitimacy and more power to oppress its people," Sayeh Hassan told QMI Agency Friday...

All the Liberal Jews are chomping at the bit to elect their man-boy, Justin, even though he's an imbecile who yearns to schmooze with mullahs. What fools these leftist Jews be!Update: Pro-pot proponent/wannabe mullah schmoozer Justin sings Buffet:Wasted away again in Ayatollahville.Searchin' for a shred of dignitee-ee.Some people claim that all the Joooos are to blameBut I know, not the ones who're for me...

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Scaramouche is my nom de Web. My real name is Mindy G. Alter, and I like to think of myself as a free speecher with a sense of humour. My bailiwick: fighting on behalf of all the good things that free speech helps safeguard, and doing my utmost to highlight the malevolence and imbicilities of those who oppose freedom, whomever they may be.